Being Watched in the Sanitarium

To be honest, I have always believed in the supernatural. I've had
feelings like I was being watched and saw things that weren't really
there. My mom and dad thought that I was acting a little strange and
that I needed to think about other things and not some ghost or spirit.
They said that those things didn't exist. But, all that changed one
summer day when I decided to head up to Cherokee, Iowa to visit my mom.
Two years earlier, her and my dad had divorced. I stayed home in
Illinois with my dad and my mom, wanting to get away from everything and
start over, moved to Iowa.

My actual first encounter with any kind of spirit or entity happened
when I lived back home in Illinois. I was visiting a male friend when it
happened. Of course he told me all about the ghost he dubbed "Casper."
He had told me that Casper loved to play pranks; i.e. move things, make
appearances and the like, and that he seemed to be attached to a very
old dresser. My friend also told me that he watched as something
"brushed" its fingers through his now ex-wife's hair!

The encounter I had with "Casper" was my first (although before that
I would just have ominous feelings and nothing interesting would
happen). It was a normal day when I went over to visit him. He was
working up in the attic. As we were talking he asked me if I wanted
anything to drink. He ended up getting me a Coke from his fridge.
Deciding he was going to go up in the attic again, we placed our drinks
on a bookshelf in the living room. His drink was on one shelf and mine
under his. While up in the attic, I would constantly look into the
living room as if something was there. I had a very clear view of this
room and could easily see anyone enter or exit it. Even out of the
corner of my eye, I could see fine.

Once done in the attic, my friend climbed down the ladder and we went
back to the living room and went to grab our drinks when I noticed that
mine was missing. I looked at my friend and asked him what he did with
my Coke. He smiled at me and said it wasn't him and that it was Casper
who did this. Now, I would have known if my friend had moved it on me,
as there was a lot of clutter about in the living room and of course the
view of the living room that I had.

Finally we started to look for the Coke can and after searching his
whole house, wouldn't you believe it, we found the Coke sitting on the
dresser that is supposedly inhabited by my friends resident ghost! After
that, I was definitely a believer!

My next encounters would happen in Cherokee, Iowa in the years 2000
to 2004. After traveling for 10 hours and arriving in the town, I met up
with my mother and we then headed to her apartment which was located on
one half of the upper floor of a house that is over 100 years old.

The house, which I found was dated back to about the late 1880s or
1890s and had once been some kind of hospital where cancer patients had
been treated -- it was called the Cherokee Cancer Sanitarium. This
place, once I arrived, I could feel that it had some kind of a
background to it. The strange feelings that I got from it when I walked
up to it almost became unbearable. There was one particular room in the
house that made me feel uncomfortable and it also gave me a strange
feeling that something traumatic happened in there. Also of note is that
this house supposedly had a tunnel running from it to the house(s)
across the street and next door. However, as far as I can tell, if there
was a tunnel there, it has been sealed off and you are unable to tell
exactly where it was.

My first true encounter in the house happened at night. I was lying
on the couch when I had the feeling that someone or something was
watching me. I looked up toward the closet door saw someone standing
there, hidden in the shadows -- it looked like a tall, burly man wearing
a suit and what looked like a bowler hat. After seeing this, I thought I
was dreaming, but I knew I was awake. After seeing this I became
slightly frightened by "his" appearance. I figured that maybe it was the
former doctor who owned the building. But unfortunately I couldn't see
his face, only what looked like a black shadow where the face should
have been. Needless to say, I covered up my face with my blanket and
kept my eyes closed.

After that event I told my mother, who is pretty much a non-believer
in that sort of thing. She always tells me that unless something happens
to her, then she isn't worried about it. However, one year later I also
found myself living in Cherokee with my mother. The strange things that
happened when I came up the first time didn't end there.

Around the year 2003, me and my mom wanted to go somewhere, but her
checkbook had somehow been misplaced. We looked absolutely everywhere:
behind cabinets, in cabinets, in the bathroom, bedroom, living room, and
pretty much just about anything that could be opened and moved. My mom
thought I had taken her checkbook and hidden it as some kind of mean
practical joke, but I would never do that to her. The checkbook was on
the table in the kitchen earlier that day.

After about four hours of no luck and continued checking of the
locations, I finally came upon the checkbook; know where it showed up
at? In the cabinet sitting on a dinner plate! I couldn't believe it! My
mom to this day still thinks that I took and hid her checkbook and
cleverly replaced it somewhere else.
Other strange events also followed: hearing noises downstairs when
the house was empty (we lived in an upstairs apartment attached to the
main level of the house). Sometimes I would hear distant music and not
know where it was coming from and the strangest and most frightening
things that happened occurred after me and the landlord's daughter
decided to take digital pictures of the house in the dark -- that was a
big mistake on our part.

This next-to-last incident happed one evening in 2004. I was
downstairs visiting our landlords and her daughter. While down there, me
and her had this idea to take pictures of certain places in the house
that seemed very eerie: mainly the stairs leading up to the landlord's
half of the upstairs and the particular bedroom that always seemed as if
the air was heavy when I would enter it. The pictures we took of one of
the downstairs bathrooms, kitchen and computer room came up nothing.
However once we decided to take pictures of the stairs and the unused
bedroom, me and the girl had felt as if we had started to anger
something. That same evening, me and the landlord's daughter were there
by ourselves and we decided to take a picture of the other downstairs
bathroom and as soon as the flash went off, it felt as if we had
really made something angry.

After the last picture was taken we went into the living room and sat
down. We started flipping through the pictures and nothing had shown up
at first, but going through them a second time, we found many different
sizes of orbs. The one room that seemed to have the most orbs was the
unused bedroom that gave me the bad feelings that something had happened
in there. This feeling was coming from a certain part in the room. Most
notably, the left corner looking into the room. Another picture we
looked at was a picture we took from down on the landing looking up the
stairs. When viewing this image, about half way up, there was a cluster
of orbs as if to almost make the shape of a person. Also in the same
picture, you can see the ceiling fan. There was also an orb up by this.

Soon after these photos were taken, however, and after I had gone
back upstairs to our half of the house and the landlords were out on the
road (they were truckers) and her daughter had left to go back to New
York, I felt as if a presence; unseen of course, had been following my
every move for at least the next five months! Eventually the feeling
started to wane, and I felt that the entity or whatever it was, was
satisfied by how scared I had become.

This last incident was described to me by my mother. I was at work
when this supposedly happened. When I got home, my mom sat up from the
couch and asked me if I had been home earlier. Naturally I shook my head
and said I had been at work and I had just gotten home. I then asked her
why. She told me that she opened her eyes and swore she saw a little
girl with long hair and in curls tied with a bow and wearing a dress
that was popular back in the 1800's. she said she was looking down on
her and I told my mom that I had a feeling that somehow a girl about
10-12 years of age was also attached to that house in someway. My mom,
once again thought I was crazy and that she was hallucinating or
dreaming the girl.

However, I will leave these stories to the imagination of those who
read it. But to me, the incidents and feelings that happened in those
houses are still with me today and I have yet to deny what I felt and
saw in that place.